


no heart of gold, just flesh and blood

by quantumducky



Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: ? - Freeform, Breathplay, Consent, Established Relationship, F/F, Gore, Light Dom/sub, Medical Kink, Painplay, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Praise Kink, Temporary Character Death, Vivisection, death in a horny way, honestly i dont know if all these tags are right im just being safe, oh god how do i tag this, surprisingly little actual sex, the inherent intimacy of holding someone's literal heart in your hands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-26
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:15:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23323048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumducky/pseuds/quantumducky
Summary: Raphaella wants to understand how the Mechanisms' altered biology works. Ivy volunteers to let her take a closer look.
Relationships: Ivy Alexandria/Raphaella la Cognizi
Comments: 12
Kudos: 75
Collections: The Mechanisms After Dark





	no heart of gold, just flesh and blood

**Author's Note:**

> if the actual irl mechanisms see this i'm not sorry, you read the tags and clicked on it anyway that's on you

Ivy shivered with a combination of chill and anticipation, laid out naked on Raphaella’s operating table. Raphaella herself was a short distance away, busy setting out the tools she was about to need, and every little sound she heard made Ivy’s pulse jump before she forced it back to normal. It was a simple enough situation, really. Raphaella had needed a volunteer for her investigation of how _exactly_ the crew’s altered biology worked, and Ivy- curious herself, and already in the category of “people who don’t exactly mind Raph seeing them naked”- had easily agreed to help.

Finished with her set-up, Raphaella walked over and laid a delicate hand on her chest- the other held a scalpel. Ivy shivered again, and she smiled. “Are you ready? Remember what to do if you need to stop?”

She bit her lower lip and closed her eyes. “Yes.” Because it would almost certainly become difficult or impossible for her to speak at some point, there were several gestures agreed upon to communicate if it became too much for her. Depending on where they were in the process, Raphaella would be cued to either stop what she was doing and let her up or simply kill her. Ivy did not anticipate needing them, but it was nice to know the option was there.

“Good.”

That was all the warning Ivy got before Raphaella made her first incision, cutting a line all the way down her chest. She inhaled sharply and opened her eyes. Raphaella, intent on her task, didn’t even notice, let alone look up at her. The sight of her was steadying anyway. Ivy squeezed her eyes shut again and focused on controlling her breathing. She was thoroughly strapped down, of course, but she still wanted to keep as still as possible, suppress the automatic reactions of her body to pain. She had a mechanical brain, dammit, she should have more control of herself than to be overruled by instinct.

Raphaella didn’t acknowledge her directly again until she had finished making cuts and peeling the skin of her chest away to the sides, not that Ivy would have been able to respond even if she did. When she finally paused, Ivy took a moment to push the pain signals her brain was receiving into the background and catalogue what _else_ her senses were telling her. It felt strange, the cool air of the lab whispering over parts of her body that were never meant to be exposed to it. Raphaella looked pleased with herself, said something about how _neatly_ she’d been able to reflect the skin. Ivy had trouble paying attention. It took a lot to overload a mind like hers, but Raph was _also_ admiring the freshly exposed muscles, and when she saw Ivy was looking at her again, she started tracing them with her fingers, watching how they twitched in response.

They made eye contact, and Raphaella smiled, splaying her hand flat against the raw flesh and feeling Ivy’s breathing hitch. “You can’t even see how you look right now,” she sighed. “Don’t worry, I’ll show you later.” Of course there was a camera on them right now- it wouldn’t be science if it wasn’t recorded, and the blood on Raphaella’s hands would have made it difficult to write things down. She dragged her hand down Ivy’s chest just to get a reaction; Ivy shuddered and whined- but still didn’t try to squirm away like she had been expecting.

“Oh,” she realized softly. “Oh, you’re trying to stay still for me, aren’t you?”

With her head strapped down along with everything else to keep her from hurting herself, Ivy had to answer with actual words rather than a slightly embarrassed nod. “I- I didn’t want to- to mess up your lines.”

Ivy almost expected Raph to tease, but her voice stayed just as soft. “And you’re doing a wonderful job. Do you think you can keep being good for me while I keep going?”

She tried to nod, again, and it still didn’t work. She must have _really_ been overwhelmed, if she was forgetting things. “Yes,” she managed. “I’ll try.”

It would have been possible to push the pain away, just like she had before to clear her head. She could have chosen _not_ to feel it so sharply when Raphaella cut away the muscles of her chest, stripping her down layer by layer until there was nothing left between her and Ivy’s ribs- but, well. That would have been cheating, wouldn’t it? Would have defeated the entire purpose of _being good for her._ Ivy quickly abandoned any hope of controlling her breath when it was hard enough to keep herself from fighting against the restraints. She could hear Raphaella’s voice as if from underwater: an absentminded attempt to soothe, telling her she was doing so well, they were almost done with this part, just a little more. When she could think again, she realized she was nearly sobbing.

“There you are,” Raphaella murmured. She was tapping her fingers against the fourth rib, almost like she didn’t know what she was doing. Ivy tried to stop gasping for breath.

“I thought I should check in, before we go any farther. It’s okay if you want to stop here.”

Ivy’s first few attempts at speaking didn’t go well, but she finally managed a raspy, “No.”

“Okay.” She leaned up and kissed Ivy’s cheek, careful to keep her hair away from the mess she’d been making. “You just take a minute to collect yourself, then, and I’ll get the bone saw.”

The fact that those words sent a thrill up Ivy’s spine was probably something she ought to have talked to Marius about, if she had actually believed the man to be in any way qualified or competent. This _not_ being the case, she supposed she would just have to live with it.

“It’s very interesting, you know,” Raphaella commented from slightly too far away to turn her head and see, “if I leave your skin and muscles in place for too long after cutting them away, they start trying to reattach themselves. We’ll have to experiment with that further sometime.”

Ivy made a weak noise of what might have been agreement. She wasn’t entirely sure herself.

She was almost calm again when Raphaella came back and hooked her fingers through her goddamn ribcage. She flinched and swore loudly in a language no one else still living remembered.

Raph grinned in a way that belied her innocent tone. “I have to get everything away from your ribs. You don’t want me cutting into your lungs, do you? Not _yet,_ at least.”

Ivy glared up at her through tears. Then Raphaella prodded at her organs again, maybe a little harder than necessary, and she whimpered.

Raphaella smirked. “Are you _sure_ you don’t want to stop?”

“Will you just get on with it,” she grit out. “I don’t want to be here all-”

The end of her sentence was cut off by the whir of the saw turning on, and then by her own scream.

There was no keeping control of herself anymore. Ivy thrashed helplessly against bonds she had no actual desire to be free of, even while knowing she was only making the process longer and more difficult than it needed to be. If Raphaella said anything to her this time, she certainly couldn’t hear it, but once or twice she felt the hand she wasn’t holding the bone saw with drift down to smooth along her side, press against her abdomen. It was almost enough to distract her from the pain, though it certainly didn’t do anything to make her move around _less._ It also didn’t last. Cutting through a person’s sternum, after all, was not a one-handed job, and Ivy’s thoughts- such as they were- quickly dissolved back into a haze of pain and screaming her throat raw.

She hadn’t stayed still at _all._ When her mind flickered back online, that was the first thing she latched onto.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, a breathy slur. Opening her eyes was difficult, but worth the effort, as she could now see Raphaella again, fuzzy around the edges and holding a neat rectangular chunk of her ribcage.

She frowned. “What for?”

“Told me to… not to move.” Ivy did her best to communicate impatience, despite being unable to move, breathe properly, or form a complete sentence. “Made it harder.” It was already unpleasant, knowing Raphaella was going to be disappointed with her failure to listen, without also having to _remind_ her about it.

Raphaella set her ribs aside and came up to her, and Ivy could make out concern on her face. “Oh, Ivy, no. You don’t need to be _sorry_ for that- honestly, love, you have no idea how well you’ve been taking this, do you? No ordinary person could have handled half of what I’ve done to you. You’ve been _so_ strong for me- and now comes the _fun_ part, if you think you can hold on a little longer. Okay?”

Ivy may have felt bad when Raph started talking, but by the end she was overwhelmed with a different feeling entirely. “Oh,” she managed, and decided the tears in her eyes had nothing to do with anything other than how much everything currently hurt. “Okay.”

Raphaella smiled at her, her hand resting lightly over Ivy’s heart. She didn’t make any move to proceed until she got a weak smile in return.

“Now, I’m very interested in how you’re breathing right now.” She cut away the membrane covering Ivy’s lungs with careful precision and spent a few seconds watching them continue to expand and contract, however faltering the motion may have been.

Ivy huffed a laugh and let her watch that movement, too. “Not well.”

She frowned. “Maybe not, but _I’m_ still fairly impressed, seeing as you don’t currently have most of the _muscles_ that are normally required to do it at _all.”_ She slid her hand over to one of Ivy’s lungs and pressed down experimentally.

“Ah- _Raphaella-”_

“Shh, let me test some things.”

And, well, it wasn’t as if Ivy could _stop_ her… or rather, she could have, but she wasn’t going to. She just made a soft noise of assent and tried not to interrupt for the next few minutes while Raphaella explored the workings of her lungs.

Fortunately, the shushing didn’t seem to mean she actually wanted her to be _quiet._ Pretty much the opposite, in fact. Raphaella felt her way around the shape of her organs, fingers intruding into the fissures between the lobes of her lungs. She tried her best to keep a straight face, but Ivy didn’t miss the flicker of satisfaction every time she made her gasp or fail to bite back another of those pretty, helpless noises Ivy knew she loved.

Until she started pressing down again, and Ivy couldn’t make any sound at all. She couldn’t _breathe._ Raphaella watched the result intently, feeling her lungs spasm under her hands in a futile struggle to take in air, and didn’t even look up once as Ivy’s own vision began to dim. And then- shit, that felt so _weird,_ but it was difficult to care- she moved one of her hands away, and Ivy gasped to catch her breath while still half feeling like she couldn’t breathe. When her head cleared, she flushed and winced at the realization that she had also been unconsciously squirming from arousal. Not that Raphaella didn’t already know damn well what her kinks were- they wouldn’t be here otherwise- but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to be insufferable about it if she’d noticed.

Ivy’s glance up at her was met with a delighted raising of eyebrows. Oh, she _definitely_ noticed.

“You certainly seem to be enjoying yourself.”

She opened her mouth to defend herself, or possibly just tell her to fuck off, but before she could form any words, Raphaella put her hand back and _squeezed,_ and all she could do was choke on a whine. When she eventually let up again- still only halfway, still absently noting the way her lungs could apparently function independently of each other- Ivy got the message.

“I wasn’t finished talking,” she said mildly, as if she hadn’t just nearly suffocated her to shut her up. “Don’t interrupt.”

Ivy couldn’t nod, and she couldn’t say anything to indicate she understood, and she was still both low on oxygen and _very_ frustratingly turned on, and unable to do anything about it. All she could do was give Raphaella her best attentive look and hope it got across.

After a long moment of silence in which Ivy did her best not to embarrass herself any more than she already had, Raphaella nodded, apparently satisfied.

“As I was _saying._ I’m glad you’re having a good time, of course, but that really isn’t what this is _about,_ so I’m afraid I won’t be able to help you. It would only introduce unnecessary complications, and I don't think you want me distracted while holding sharp things near your vital organs, do you?"

Ivy whined again, low and soft and desperate. She was trembling with the effort of trying not to twist her hips in search of any kind of contact- it wouldn’t do her any good, with her legs strapped down just far apart enough to be hopeless. Surely Raphaella hadn’t planned it like that intentionally… right?

(There was a 78% chance that Raphaella had planned it like that intentionally. Ivy had just worked the probability out in her head as part of an ongoing and dubiously successful effort to not completely lose her mind.)

"If you think you can behave yourself until we're done here…" She brushed Ivy's clit with her thumb and smirked at her reaction; Ivy hadn't even noticed her hand wandering lower. "I might let you come before you die."

The touch was gone before she could even try to chase it. She tried anyway, belated and completely useless, and Raphaella _tsk_ ed and pinned her in place, one hand at her waist and the other on her upper thigh. Ivy went still immediately under her firm grip and nearly stopped breathing- ironic, considering she was finally permitted to do so normally again.

"Raph, please…" She would never have let herself sound so needy, under ordinary circumstances, but these were decidedly _not,_ and the words slipped out before she could think to stop them. "Please, I, I need-"

 _"Behave,_ I said."

It was very unfair of her to be so frustrating and so _hot_ at the same time. Ivy whimpered once more and went silent.

“Good.” Raph squeezed her thigh before letting go, and Ivy glared rather unconvincingly. She couldn’t be expected, under the circumstances, to put up a good act that she _wasn’t_ enjoying the hell out of her teasing. “Now, if you’re finished distracting me…” She picked up her tools and waited a moment, just long enough to let Ivy tap out if she wanted to, then cut through the last thin layer keeping her from Ivy’s heart.

The pain almost didn’t register anymore- or rather, it was as present as it had ever been, but she could hardly be bothered to pay attention to it. It was like every other sensation stopped existing when Raphaella’s hands slipped carefully, almost reverently, around her beating heart.

For a long few seconds, neither of them moved or spoke. Ivy’s eyes were shut tight, her body shaking, but she forced herself to look up, and she wasn’t disappointed. Raphaella was practically frozen, looking down at her with soft awe on her face. Ivy noticed, not for the first time, that the artificial lights of the lab caught in her hair like a glowing halo. She wondered what it felt like when her heartbeat picked up and fluttered against her palms.

“It’s… beautiful, Ivy.” Raphaella spoke quietly, too quiet to be picked up by the camera recording them. She stroked the surface, light and gentle, and Ivy gasped and trembled even more, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “This is just the most incredible…” She shook her head, and if Ivy’s vision could be trusted, she was looking a bit teary herself. “Thank you so much. For sharing- _yourself_ with me like this.” And then, with more tenderness than should have been possible under the circumstances, she leaned down and pressed her lips to Ivy’s heart as if it were the hand of a noblewoman. It seemed she cared far less about the unpleasant things this got on her face than about the breathless whine it elicited from Ivy.

She straightened up and licked her lips without thinking. Ivy made a mental note to remember not to kiss her after this until she was certain she’d brushed her teeth, no matter how good she looked doing it.

“I know I’ve put you through a lot today,” she continued, slightly flushed as she realized what she’d just done. “I’m going to make it good for you now that we’re done, promise.”

Ivy tried to say something in response, but didn’t manage to form any actual words, which was probably just as well. She didn’t care _what_ kind of brain she had, no one should be expected to think clearly with their _actual heart_ cradled in their girlfriend’s hands like a fragile tamed bird.

With another delicate caress, Raphaella settled her heart back in its normal position, where it felt strangely cold. If Ivy had really wanted to speak, she would’ve had just a few seconds before she lost the chance entirely. When Raphaella removed the first of her lungs, she screamed, pain mixing with the instinctive fear of death such that she couldn’t help herself. She had a moment to recover- catch her breath, such as it was- and then she couldn’t scream at all anymore.

Part of her was glad it had been quick, so that she hadn’t had too much time to anticipate it. The rest couldn’t think anything coherent at all. She couldn’t remember death ever feeling quite like this before. She had nothing left with which to even _try_ to breathe; panicked commands sent down her nerves fizzled out with nowhere to go, and the rest of her muscles spasmed uselessly, beginning to lose strength.

She nearly blacked out on the spot when Raphaella’s hand trailed down her body and came to rest between her legs. Ivy was _well_ past the point of being able to stop herself rocking clumsily against it, and Raphaella, _thank fuck,_ didn’t do anything to stop her either. Just left her hand there, almost like she was humoring her, while the other got a grip on her heart again and- did _something,_ something that definitely wasn’t meant to be done to a heart, and Ivy couldn’t do anything about it except keep pressing desperately into her hand while her vision blurred with tears and lack of oxygen.

Raphaella said something to her, whispering in her ear, and she was too far gone to have any idea what it was, but a second later she took her hand away. Ivy would have protested, but with no air to make a sound, all she was capable of was a silent, frustrated sob. “There, there, almost done,” Raph murmured, and at least this time she could _understand_ some of it before it faded into indistinct sounds again. “Trust me.”

Stupid as it certainly was, she did. And then Raphaella was cutting her heart out of her chest, and she couldn’t scream- could barely even struggle anymore. Her vision was going dark now, senses gradually fading into fuzzy nothingness. She felt Raphaella’s hand on her face, smearing her own blood over her cheek, and a kiss on her forehead just below the strap holding her head down. She saw her face, vaguely, and felt her other hand slide back down, and then Raphaella kissed her, full-on, and ground her palm against her at the same time, and Ivy shuddered apart with the last of her strength as the world faded to black.

* * *

She didn’t know how long she was dead. There was nothing for a while, and then, when her body had mostly repaired itself but wasn’t quite ready for her mind to join it, there were faint impressions of the world around her. A distant voice; gentle touches on her tender new skin. Something cool and wet, then something warm and dry. Movement: she was stretched out on a surface just this side of uncomfortable, then pressed against warmth, and finally surrounded in cloud-soft comfort. She could hear that voice the entire time, humming tunes she couldn’t place, but relaxed in the familiarity of nonetheless. She didn’t even register returning to full consciousness before she was gone again, slipping into a well-earned nap.

Ivy woke up, and once she had calmed down from whatever it was she always seemed to startle herself awake dreaming about, she took in her current surroundings.

She wasn’t on the operating table anymore. When she managed to sit up from the nest of bedding she was halfway buried in, she realized she’d been moved to a cot tucked away in a corner of the lab. She also realized she was wearing a red silk robe and absolutely nothing else. Raphaella must have cleaned her up and left her over here to recover.

Raphaella herself wasn’t far away- Ivy could tell by the sound of her quietly singing to herself. She settled back into the blankets to listen for another minute before letting her know she was awake. Sure, she heard her singing all the time during the crew’s rehearsals… and whenever she was concentrating on something… and any time Ivy asked, which was often… but that didn’t mean she was going to pass up a chance to hear it _now._

She soaked in the sound until she began to feel she was in danger of falling asleep again, then got up and padded barefoot across the lab to the table where Raphaella sat. It wasn’t cold, even once she left the blankets behind, and although turning the heat up in the lab had probably been Raphaella’s idea, she patted the wall as thanks to Aurora for cooperating. It was just a good idea, generally, to be nice to the sentient starship who’d probably just watched your girlfriend cut your chest open and make you come about it. Not that Ivy had much of a sense of shame, but she definitely didn’t want to get on the wrong side of something she lived in. That, after all, was how unfortunate accidents involving the airlock happened to people.

“…stars to the place where the void- Oh, good morning, love. How are you feeling?”

Only Raphaella could be so genuinely sweet with Ivy’s previous set of lungs half-dissected on a tray in front of her. She stripped off her gloves and turned around to greet her with a kiss, cupping her face in her hands.

Ivy melted into her for a second, kissing back before pulling away. “Good,” she decided. “Tired. If you don’t see me for the next week once I go to bed, assume I’m still sleeping this off.”

“And…” Her face creased slightly in uncertainty. “Did you enjoy it? I mean, I thought you were, but it got a little hard to tell, near the end.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Did I- Raph, that was _incredible.”_

Raphaella tried not to look too pleased with herself, but the blush coloring her cheeks gave her away. “Well- good, because _you_ were incredible. I’ll show you the video later.”

“Definitely among my top five vivisections. And the only one ever to end in an orgasm,” she added.

She put on a faux-shocked expression. “Really? We’re going to have to change _that.”_

“Hmm,” and Ivy pretended to have to consider it in return. “Only as long as I get to return the favor sometime. It’s only fair.”

“Only fair,” Raph nodded, her voice edging up towards a squeak. “Of course.”

That settled, Ivy pulled up a second chair and sat down with her, leaning her head on Raphaella’s shoulder. “Do you want to tell me what you’re doing with my lungs, now?”

“Oh! Yes, if you look here…”

Ivy listened with a faint smile on her face, letting the words wash over her. Half of her listened, anyway. The other half was deep in her memory, sifting through relevant knowledge and illegally downloaded textbooks for anything that might help her absolutely wreck her girlfriend. It was never too early to get a start on preparing for whenever they did this again.

**Author's Note:**

> for a second i was like "wow am i really gonna post this it's pretty weird" but in the end the amount of goddamn research i did to write it won out. i'm not gonna look at that many pics of cadavers in various stages of dissection and then NOT publish the result. if you're some sort of anatomy expert and i got something wrong i don't wanna hear about it i'm an english major and i can't unsee so many things now-


End file.
